


Strange Infatuation

by levitatethis



Category: True Blood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-13
Updated: 2010-03-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 22:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levitatethis/pseuds/levitatethis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric has his reasons for playing mind games with Bill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Infatuation

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by **comasisters** brilliant video ~ Eric/Bill: Strange Infatuation -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNUC5xd3QiY

**I**

“How’s your little protégé?”

Bill narrows his eyes, hesitating briefly before replying, “Jessica is fine. She is out with Hoyt tonight.”

Eric raises an eyebrow in amusement. The thumping sounds of another busy night in Fangtasia bleed through the walls and with Bill in his domain (and very unhappy about it), he nudges along calculatedly. “You actually let her out of your sight? You’re getting soft in your old age.”

Bill rolls his eyes, tensing then relaxing his shoulders. “She is not a prisoner and she needs to be able to socialize, to be as normal as possible. Besides, Hoyt and I have come to an understanding.”

“Have you?” Eric posits coyly. “How very progressive of you.” He leans across the desk, peering intently at Bill and adds, “Speaking of sharing, how’s Sookie?”

A new hand is being played.

Bill glares.

Eric laughs.

They both know it’s just a matter of time.

 

**II   
**  
Sookie has always been an enigma.

Defiant, but curious, she exists outside of the enthralled masses, a lone creature in over her head, with a quick tongue and potentially reckless abandonment.

She has always been a cipher, never more so than arching up beneath him, clutching at his body and moaning deliciously. Understanding breeds enlightenment and Eric sees what Bill held tightly to, until a well placed truth split an insurmountable rift.

Eric had imagined the taste of her unknown essence from their first meeting, and in her own right Sookie is someone worth knowing. But the fact that she was Bill’s was the added incentive.

Eric knows precisely where Bill’s lips have grazed her body and makes the same journey. He sucks in the heated skin of her inner thigh, licks up her stomach, rolls a pert nipple between this tongue and teeth, and gently teases her open with his fingers, before pushing himself in all the way.

He can smell the faint hint of Bill still lingering on her skin from months gone and thrusts harder. She wraps her legs around his waist and bites down on his shoulder (but it’s his teeth that will break skin and revel in the crimson drug), meeting his steady movements with a matching rhythm, and Eric squeezes his eyes shut.

He wants Sookie.

He wants…

He can’t stop remembering.

 

**III   
**  
Eric knows Bill considers their previous _encounters_ as little more than transgressions. It’s a label the younger vampire uses to avoid personal accountability. Yet, Eric wonders if Bill ever takes a moment for himself to think more honestly on the how’s and why’s concerning what continues to snap them back together (whether behind the guise of business or heeded warnings) from across all kinds of distances, across land and time.

Eric recalls the old Bill with a certain fondness. He used to be almost uncaringly sadistic, no surprise given the near lunacy of his maker, Lorena. Bill was capable of utter cruelty against the human population, unapologetic in the taking of what he wanted. Eric found that wild side incredibly intoxicating and manipulated Lorena out of the picture as often as possible.

Usually Eric could steal a few hours a couple of nights a week. The sound of their loud laughter mixed with the copper scent of spilled blood remains a potent memory, an aphrodisiac. Rough fingers, bruising grips (at least they would be bruising if either of them could bear the marks of marred human flesh), tangled limbs; there were hissed words and challenging glares, overheated kisses (or bites…or kisses…did it even matter?), and fucking to forget everything else that made up the four corners of the world.

It could be written off as the fury of immorality and a shared attitude of, ‘why the hell not?’

Except more often than not what they got, had to settle for, was a shared gaze lingering across a crowded room filled with more people than Eric cared to waste his time on except when work called the shots. It was the type of look that claimed a too intimate acquaintance and carried a story in tow. The smallest twitch of an invisible smile sealed the deal.

Eric found himself taken in not only by the sound of Bill’s voice (feigning irritation at speaking with Eric at all), as he spoke about his past before Lorena, but by the reverence of the life lived before. Of himself he shared only hints of the more personal with Bill, tossed behind a snide remark or joke yet genuine all the same, and was surprised to realize himself heard and contemplated, not due to the laws which demanded a subjugated vampire show respect for one of higher rank, but out of very real curiosity and interest.

The quiet calm was something Eric had only felt before with Godric (and even then it was different because Godric was his maker, his world, his existence). Eric perished the thought and chose the difficult path of turning his back on that which could ultimately destroy him—to be made vulnerable by another.

Eventually, their rare stolen moments were harder to come by and then one day Eric heard about Bill’s epiphany, his reawakened desire to live amongst the humans in some misguided act of ‘vampires without borders’. It sounded like a self imposed death sentence meant to ride out the sentence of eternity.

And shoes kept dropping. Child’s play, as far as Eric was concerned; rolling his eyes at the orders which brought Bill to Bon Temps and Sookie, and back to him.

Yes, he holds a fond remembrance for the Bill who Lorena thrust upon the world. But it occurs to Eric that the Bill who now fills the space with silent intensity housed in square shoulders and a clenched jaw, the one who clips his words and minds himself (yet still gets a good verbal jab in when he can), thinks quick, the one who would do anything to protect who he loves (including suffering the indignity of a broken heart) is the Bill who held his gaze across throngs of other vampires and fangbangers.

This was the Bill who was always peeking through and even though he is not nearly as much fun, Eric is drawn to him nonetheless. This is the Bill he wanted to know better, pick apart and see inside. And the more Bill stands firm against him, in opposition to what they once were and Eric still is, the more adamant is Eric’s resolve to tighten the leash.

He’s got all the time in the world to play.

 

**IV**

He’s thankful Sookie cannot read vampires minds.

Body language, however, is another matter. He recognizes the unasked question in her eyes when his focus is all Bill despite Sookie pressing herself closer to him in a bid to further avoid her ex (then thinking better of it and walking away from them both, unimpressed with being the third point in their tug-of-war). In turn, Bill spares a glance their way with something unreadable flickering behind darkened eyes before turning his back.

History is the culmination of intercrossing lives. Bill has become one of a handful of fixed points and Eric steps about the precarious landscape with utter fascination (hidden behind carefully delivered contempt). He likens his increasingly antagonistic behaviour towards Bill to pulling a young girl’s pigtails. His own feelings are too muddled to be believed, and part of the thrill is pushing Bill’s buttons, watching him react without overstepping the boundaries set in place by vampire law. He muses as Bill squirms and tenses, doing everything to make their issues about Sookie and bad blood politics rather than the more intimate years etched in stone.

From afar (often through stories turned through the gossip mill), Eric has watched Bill struggle with his self-inflicted penance, trying to cast out demons which were once friends guiding his survival. Eric wants to push the weight away and ease Bill’s mind, alone, just the two of them away from prying eyes, treading on the ground of once familiar companions. He wishes to reach into Bill’s mind and make him see the consequences of denial and the error of refusal. He wants to breathe new purpose—or a real one—into Bill’s body, even if it’s by the blistering force of pulling rank.

But Eric cannot show that side of him. It would draw the attention of overly inquisitive eyes and unsolicited judgments about his own character, undone by another; and not just any vampire, but Bill Compton, the Queen’s special employee, the vampire who chooses to live with humans rather than his own, the one who drinks from the bottle not the vein, and then only tastes of the one he loves. Eric should spite him (he knows he has the backing of those who wish it) for behaviour unbecoming a vampire, but he can’t bring himself to follow through on coolly delivered threats. Instead he observes from a high perch and protects Bill from far, through the actions of _not_ turning him into an example. There are other ways of making Bill grasp the gravity of the situation.

It’s fortunate for Eric (and maybe not so much for Bill) that he likes Sookie, overwhelmingly desires her. However it bears repeating as an inescapable mantra that her being is as tied up for Eric in Bill as it is in her own existence that drives his want. If it is unfair to Sookie to be caught in such an unforgiving web (after all, she has no knowledge of what has already filled the prologue of his present life), Eric is mindful but makes no apologies.

With hundreds of years behind him, Eric has witnessed blind ignorance turn into willful denial, then resignation of truth and the tenacity to survive or perish. Vampires are made survivors, but humans (even as base a creature as they are) house a similar design.

Sookie’s a survivor; she’s proven it time and time again.

So is Bill.

Eric deliberately rattles Bill’s walls and puts cracks in the foundation. He rolls his tongue over condescending words and Bill snaps his retort—but does not walk away or turn in on himself in weakness. He returns Eric’s intent gaze, with silent obscenities resting in the lines at the corner of his lips, and forgotten utterances pushed into darkness, not meant to be uncovered.

It is in this tumultuous disarray that unites and divides, where Bill’s humility meets focused madness and thoughtful stoicism, that Eric finds himself ensnared.

 

**  
V**

Bill is M.I.A.

Sookie hides her concern behind a tempered façade. It’s been a week since Eric last dropped in to say hi and ascertain any new information (and so much more if she was up for it—which she wasn’t, although her body told a conflicting story), but his spies detail her growing distraction.

Eric is at a loss (no one knows where the hell Bill has disappeared to) and angrier than he’s been in awhile (Pam wisely curls up her sharp words, saving pointed barbs for a more appreciated time). He spends a lot of time on his own puzzling over the virtually non-existent clues to Bill’s whereabouts. He calls in favours with professional acquaintances, going so far as to cross race lines; dealing with unhappy werewolves who aren’t exactly thrilled with his suddenly more notable presence in their territory, but who do their part to help out (mostly to maintain positive relations with the Queen).

Sookie demands answers he cannot give her. She goes right, he goes left, both searching for the same information but pulling different strings. He remembers his last conversation (albeit brief) with Bill and replays the words over and over, trying to find something to anchor himself to.

_“You always did hold a grudge with such flare for the dramatic.” Eric leans in close, his voice a rumbling whisper._

_Bill tightens his jaw and flits his eyes to the side. “You destroy everything in your path.” _

_“No.”_

_Bill pauses and reassesses his statement. “Then it is everything in my path you find expendable.”_

_When Eric doesn’t reply Bill turns towards him. “You’ve already taken what matters to me. What more could you possibly want?”_

_Eric angles his head down in a patronizing gesture. “Be wary of questions you already know the answer to.”_

_“…I am no longer that man—,”_

_“You will always be that man.”_

_Bill regards him with a curious tilt of the head. “And you are going to remind me of that for as long as we both shall live?” His tone is disbelieving and annoyed, but Eric hears the faint trace of wistfulness._

_“For as long as you insist on playing house with these humans.”_

_Bill raises an eyebrow at the blatant hypocrisy, but doesn’t say her name. “Of course those rules do not apply to you.”_

_“When you’re Sheriff you can pick-and-choose too.”_

_“I would rather lead by example.”_

_“People don’t like being preached at, Bill. You know that better than anyone. They respond better to orders. Then they can place the blame elsewhere.”_

_“I do not like being told what to do.”_

_“You forget yourself.” Eric’s reply is quick. “You work for the Queen and reside in my Area. Doing what you’re told comes with the territory.”_

_Bill folds his arms across his chest and Eric smirks at the tantrum surely brewing beneath. He can almost see the barrage of words fighting to break loose from Bill’s lips, angry ones, dejected ones, and the most delightfully vague hint of—_

_“Maybe it is time I moved on,” Bill says absentmindedly—with the trace of a threat._

_Eric loves when Bill’s resolve falters, if only for a few seconds. It’s the reminder that this thing between them does indeed exist in all its confused forms just as much for Bill, even with claims to the contrary. It is the extension of a fixed gaze Bill rests on him when he’s pretending to feel nothing but hate, and is drawn from the thoughtful consideration Bill gives him when no one else is around; it is the flicked, pointed teeth of refusal and arousal when they face off._

_“Why not?” Eric dips his head, bringing his lips to Bill’s ear. “You always come back.” _

 

Eric wonders how far he would be willing to go to find Bill. How far could he be pushed until it is instinct to act? Bill has disappeared and suddenly immortality sounds like a death sentence handed down with mocking pleasure. He thinks of Godric and the selfless way he accepted the end, putting something else above his own worth. Eric couldn’t grasp it at the time and lost a piece of his heart in the process. It should have been over then—a life lesson taught once but never repeated. It couldn’t be.

Except now Eric is feeling a pull inside of him, a tug, familiar yet unknown that tightens his stomach, pounds his mind and makes his limbs antsy to move—with purpose or haphazardly, hopefully hitting something along the way. Lashing out seems at once base and revelatory, unbecoming yet befitting. He is a circumstantial being and context is everything.

Bill is off the grid and his absence gnaws at Eric until there’s nothing but an angry pit at his center, rubbed red and raw, stinging; searing. He needs to fill it up and right himself, redraw the lines connecting himself and Bill, the ones which once stretched the vast difference between them and now bind them together.

There are few certainties in life. And death does not come to them all. As long as Eric exists within the realm of this world, so shall Bill.

It always comes back to them.

 


End file.
